A half-dozen questions for teachers to ask themselves before teaching their next class: What does a grade in my class measure: effort or achievement? What would a successful academic year look like for this particular student? For this particular class? What do I perceive to be my greatest strength and greatest weakness as a teacher? (Idea: Create an anonymous survey in which you asked your students to honestly answer those two questions.) What would a …
Category: On Teaching
Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after have a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors; they four in one day killed as much fowl, as with a little help beside, served the company almost a week, at which time amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their …
Teaching can be a thankless job. Teachers put in far more hours than just the hours they spend in the classroom. Outside of the classroom, there is the additional time spent in preparation, grading, and counseling students and families—which usually adds up to being greater than the teaching time itself. That not to mention the emotional, mental, and spiritual burden teachers who genuinely care for their students carry with them, day in and day out. …
Whatever an education is, it should make you a unique individual, not a conformist; it should furnish you with an original spirit with which to tackle the big challenges; it should allow you to find values which will be your road map through life; it should make you spiritually rich, a person who loves whatever you are doing, wherever you are, whomever you are with; it should teach you what is important: how to live …
The laws that govern good teaching can be understood similarly to the way Jesus explained that the entire law could be boiled down to two commandments. In theory, one who loved God fully and accurately and, in a similar manner, loved his neighbor as himself, would fulfill the whole law. Instead of getting bogged down in all the complicated details of how to succeed as a teacher, one can simply establish and continue to develop …
There is a single question every teacher will eventually hear, and every student will be tempted to ask: Why do we have to learn this? Sometimes the question is framed a little differently—like, when am I ever going to use this in real life?—but what might be the oldest question in education is in one of its various forms just begging to be asked. The motivation behind the question is often something like “this subject …